2012 Best of the Best Government/Public Building, Engineering News Record

2012 Award of Honor, Society of American Registered Architects/New York Council

2012 American Architecture Award, The Chicago Athenaeum

Set amongst the foothills of the Wasatch Range, the Rio Tinto Center serves as the new home for the Natural History Museum of Utah. The dramatic building facade is clad with 42,000 sq ft of standing-seam copper installed in horizontal bands suggestive of Utah rock formations. In addition to the copper, the complex facade features multiple cladding systems that come together at different angles and planes. SGH reviewed the building enclosure design and worked with the project team to evaluate alternatives to improve cost and performance.

Scope | Solutions

SGH collaborated on the building enclosure design and helped the project team tackle the challenges associated with the severe local climate in terms of both high summer temperatures and low winter moisture levels. We recognized that low exterior moisture levels during cold weather exacerbate moisture migration from a humidified museum space through the building enclosure and air leakage from the exterior can cause undesirable fluctuations in interior humidity levels.

Enclosure components which cannot function in high humidity environments are subject to problems ranging from interior surface condensation to corrosion of structural components and degradation of building materials. SGH helped develop a high performance building enclosure system for the project with walls, roofs, windows, doors, curtain walls, and skylights designed to effectively control heat, air, and moisture migration from both the interior and exterior environments.

Our work included a design review of the construction documents. We provided recommendations to address the project challenges and also performed construction administration services that included water testing and whole-building infrared scans to verify the integrity of the finished enclosure.